Radios are pervasive in many different forms, including portable radios, mobile radios in cars, radios in cellular telephones, as well as radios for the home, such as clock radios, stereo receivers and so forth. Many of today's radios operate using digital tuning, in which a user can select a desired-channel digitally, e.g., using control buttons to select a given digital representation of the channel. However, many radios still provide a mechanical analog control such as a tuning wheel, where a user rotates the wheel to a selected position that represents a given channel. In such mechanically tuned radios, typically the tuning wheel is coupled to a tuning capacitor, which is a relatively expensive electronic component that provides a variable capacitance having a high degree of accuracy and range, and that in turn controls a tuning circuit of the radio. While easy to use, such an implementation can raise system costs and increase the size of a design, as it can take up a significant amount of real estate, both on a circuit board itself, as well as its height extending from the board. Furthermore, additional components of a tuning circuit used in connection with the tuning circuit such as capacitances, inductances, filters, and so forth are needed and can require factory alignment for fine tuning, raising the bill of material and time of manufacture and thus increasing manufacturing costs.